I am so SICK of rain! It has been raining for almost a week straight now. The other night we ended up with three inches of water in our basement too. Not a huge deal as there is nothing really stored down there, and what is is on palates, shelves, pegboards, and what not and the room where all my Christmas things are stored didn't even come near getting wet. The floors are cement and we have a floor drain too. This is the first year we have ever had water in the basement and it really was due to the storm drain out in the front getting clogged. It also sent the kids play tent that I had in the front yard way into the back and wrapped it around K's car, the Little Tykes playhouse for the babies and the small merry go round were pushed into the swing set, one of the big rocks from my lily bed as well as some of the smaller rocks I have in it were pushed into the lawn, the basketball was out by the cars, the garage was full of water, and alot of the gravel from the driveway was pushed out toward the alley. You can definately see the path the water took in the grass too, the sticks and leaves debris and the grass is really laying flat in that direction.
No major damage, the thing that was frustrating was K's work. I called him because I wasn't sure what I should do, turn on the dehumidifier that sits down there, does the whole house dehumidifier work and would that be better, do I need to worry about anything that he has plugged in in his workshop down there?...so I called during his break just to check in with him and the RUDE man in the guard shack told me NO if he does not have a phone or any thing like that I CAN NOT transfer you onto the floor any longer. And then silence. I curtly said thank you and hung up and did my best with the daycare kiddos here. I think K is going to put a complaint in with HR today, I mean what are they running over there, a prison?? It's not like I'm calling him 152 times a day telling him that the baby just pooed or this kid or that one said something funny and I just had to tell him, or just talk about nothing...and I called during break time! What if I had been in the er or something....this new company is getting terribly rediculous!

And since I am here posting, why not add another entry for k8's contest over at Three Wild Monkeys?! So here it goes!

I saw this over at Mix'd Equally where she had taken their names and played with them. Now since the hubby prefers that I refer to him by his first initial here I really couldn't play with his name much so here are a few of my favorites of mine! Here is the link so you can go and play too!http://metaatem.net/words/

Have I mentioned how much I would LOVE to win this contest??? I'm posting this as another entry for the contest. Go check out k8 and her blog at Three Wild Monkeys to check out the details and enter yourself.

Congratulations to Marc and Krystyna from One Snarky Mommy on the birth of little Anastasia!
Also congratulations go out to Aunt Erin, Uncle Tom, and cousins Ben and Simon from Tale of Two Baby Humans!
She is adorable!

Well, here I am again. We had a good Family Camp/ Outdoor Service/ Baptism/ Back to School Picnic two weeks ago. We camped Friday night and spent most of the day Saturday as well as Sunday out at the campground and Nature Center Pavilion. K ended up having a bad time with his allergies and asthma and went in to the dr that Monday. They put him on Prednesone and he was HYPER! He started his meds Monday afternoon and was up until three am talking and then Tuesday he got up at 5:30 and went to work, came home and mowed the lawn~complete with wheelies on the riding lawnmower to impress the kiddos, did the paper route, locked his keys in my car and had to walk two blocks back home to get them, walked the two blocks back to unlock the car, went and picked up his truck that was sitting at church, went to an Elders and Deacons Meeting, came home and midnight and still talked until
3 and then got up at 5:30 the next morning to go to work! I was seriously starting to feel sleep deprived! And of course that was the busiest week all summer with the daycare!
This week is slower. Monster has gone to the daycare center full time as she is going to preschool and I don't do the drive anymore. The big kids started school today and preschool starts on Wednesday at the Catholic school and Thursday at the public school. The Catholic school is three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and the public school is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. I will also have one in playgroup on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from 12:30 to 2:30. And one in the Early Childhood program that meets Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. I'm getting confused just thinking about it! Add to the fact that our school system decided not to do in town bussing so that complicates things a bit more. I am glad that they are back in school though. They were ready to go back too.
Not much more to tell, Awana starts soon, I'm ready for that too. Also the wedding of a good friend in September. I have been trying to sneak some stitching time in here and there. I bought a couple new patterns with the promise that I would finish the wedding sampler for my brother in law and his wife who just celebrated their one year anniversary in July.
I hope that you all are doing well, and I will update more often, the school schedule should allow me a bit more time, but please forgive me if I have a lapse again......it may just be that the kids have finally driven me over the edge lol!

Yay for the first day of school! Going to love this schedule....will write more about that later. Probably tonight. In the meantime check out this cool contest that I would absolutely LOVE to win !

Daycare kiddos threatening to drive me insane!!! Kids schedules slow down starting tomorrow. Will post more soon!

I know I have been a terrible blogger and a terrible friend. I am so so so sorry! I promised Holli that I would come and update on Monday at the latest and here it is Thursday and I am just getting to it. Holli, please forgive me!
I am trying to order materials for our Sunday School classes, the operative word being trying. We have promotion Sunday for the kids to move up to their new classes for those who are old enough and trying to get the class lists figured out so I can order the correct amount of materials has been, well.......interesting. I am on my third, and hopefully final, draft of the class lists. I hope to call and order the material this morning and have it done and over with!
We are preparing for our Camping/Outdoor Service/Baptism/Back to School Picnic weekend and there have been some interesting complications along with that too. The Social Committee is supposed to be in charge of getting tables set up out at the park and now we find out last night that the head of this committee might not even be there! We have no idea if she has planned for someone to set tables and things up and with all the sound equipment that we have to load, haul out to the park, set up, and then do sound check before the service....not to mention PM having to be in town to pick up the meat that the church is providing.....we really don't have time to do it. It will get done somehow, but we just hope to avoid the last minute chaos that we have had in the past.
And to top it all off, K came home on Tuesday with his thumb all wrapped up and told me that he got to go and meet the new Dr. in town. I'm not exactly sure how he did it, but he was trying to get a slide out floor or something to work on one of the trailers and got his thumb and ended up with six stitches! My Mom and I did the paper route they normally do and I am going to be there to help load things into the trucks to take out to the park this weekend, but he is supposed to play in a golf tournament this weekend to benefit the mission in town on Saturday! I think he is still going to go, it's a best shot, so even if he just taps the ball around a bit he will get to keep up with the guys and have a good time. It's for a good cause too.
My problem child's last day is Friday, the 17th. Then after one of the Mothers finishes her training (6 weeks) I will start to have some Fridays off. It will be nice, I can make Dr appointments, dentist appointments ( I may still have to have some work done on the tooth next to the one that was pulled), hair appointments, visit some friends that I don't normally get to visit, and be on time for some ballgames! I'm excited!
The neighbors wanted me to take their little guy too, but I don't think it's going to work out with the number of kids I have already, and if I did take him I wouldn't have my Fridays off. The parents work at the same place K does, and if they were on overtime I could have to take the little guy around 4:30 in the morning! Besides that, he is their only child, and it took them a while to conceive him and they are a tad overprotective (not saying it's not justified), but they live RIGHT beside us, I mean their driveway is only about six inches from my computer room window.....we would rather keep them as good friends and neighbors than have something happen and there be hurt feelings or something.
Well, I guess that's all that's new around here.....I must get going and finish the bulletin insert of songs for the service on Sunday so we can make copies, get some laundry done, and try to decide what I am going to take for the picnic.
Hugs!

Why do all the wierdos come out of the woodwork in my area? Not only am I pretty much guaranteed to get a visit from any door to door salesmen that come to town, but now I am starting to get odd phone calls. The phone rang yesterday and it was a collect call company asking if I would accept charges from (insert deep manly voice here) DAVE. I said no, because I didn't recognize the voice so I knew it wasn't the Dave that I know best, and the other Dave I know would have given his last name as well....so I hung up thinking wrong number and no problem whatever....but almost as soon as I had hung up and put the phone down it rings again and it's another company asking if I will accept charges from Dave. UM NO! Now leave me alone lol! Thankfully he didn't call back, but it made me wonder.
With all the warm and humid weather we have been having it crashed the wireless keyboard at church. We got an old corded one from home to put on there for the time being. We may run to Wally to get a new one, Radio Shack here in town really doesn't have much....but we are waiting to hear from C first as she said they may have one to give away from her office.
We have a Missions Conference this weekend at church. I am singing What if Someone Had Not Shared by Bill Butterworth on Saturday night. It's amazing that I am not nervous at all. I am just trying to memorize the spoken part, I have to sing, speak, and then sing again with a key change....and it went pretty well in practice last night, but I think we are going to try to practice one more time before the meeting.
I need to make bars for Saturday night, get my Sunday School lesson done, clean the house, and put some laundry away yet too. One of the boys has a ball game tonight that we would like to go to and K's parents will be in on Monday....starting to feel a bit overwhelmed there, but I am just deciding that they are going to have to be happy with what they get as I am still working and with everything going on (VBS starts the 22 too) I can't be a perfectionist...some things may just not get done. Not that they would have a problem with it, but I hate that feeling you know?! Anyway, kids will be waking up soon so that's all for now.....Big hugs!

Not much exciting going on around here this weekend. Mostly just catching up on things that I had gotten behind on with not feeling well and then having that tooth pulled. Lots of laundry and cleaning with a haircut thrown in for good measure. It was a little interesting when the girl who cut my hair offered to straighten it...I agreed to let her do it but was ready to rush home and wash it when I saw what it looked like when it was finished....it looked like a bad mullet helmet gone wrong! I bought a headband and put that in until I could get home. Thankfully the cut is better than her style! The girl that normally cuts my hair doesn't work there anymore, so I guess now I have to find a new hair stylist too. When it rains it pours huh?!

I know I went and disappeared again. This time I have a good reason, I promise! On Wednesday or Thursday of last week my mouth began to hurt again and I passed it off as another bout with tmj. It hurt all weekend and I was pretty miserable on Saturday at the wedding that was held at our church and at the reception afterwards all I was able to eat were mashed potatoes and gravy. Saturday night I could only sleep for 20 minutes at a time and was awake for long periods between in terrible pain. When I woke up on Sunday I had a large blister on the side of my gum where the tooth was that hurt. I talked to a friend at church on Sunday and got the name and number of her dentist (we were no longer able to go to the dentist we had been because he changed his policy to you pay now and have insurance reimburse you.....well that is why we have insurance because we just can't afford to pay one big lump sum like that...and after the last round of dental work that I had I was a bit traumatized, nothing he had done wrong, but it was just a bad situation; just before we got married I had a cavity filled. It was a bad cavity and he essentially gave it a root canal and then didn't tell me that it should have a crown. Well the tooth breaks after we are married dentist number two has to cut the gum line down in two places to give the crown something to attatch to and then go through the whole crown process. Dentist number two is a bit, well, gruff, and I do NOT handle pain well and I have a pretty rough time with it all. After all this I am left with almost a phobia of going back to the dentist even for a check up.
Well, I can not carry on like I have been all weekend so K stays home from work on Monday to take me to the dentist. Just before I am to leave we still have not gotten ahold of the three boys' grandmother so instead of him going with me he stays home to watch the boys so I can go. I was having a MAJOR panic attack I tell you! I made it (it was about a 40 min drive) ten minutes late, but I had called from the cell to tell them I was coming, I had just gotten a little lost. They got me right in and decided that I had an abcessed tooth that had to come out. Dentist number 3 said that she could put a crown on it, but it was expensive and with as much infection as I had, where the tooth was (very last tooth on left side bottom jaw) and the fact that it was broken and gum tissue had grown up through where it had broken, she could not promise that it was going to work and she would hate to see me put money into it and then have to pull it anyway. I was all for pulling it, I just wanted relief!
They were so nice! I had my own private tv to watch, they were fitting me in in between patients since I was an emergency appointment and I ended up watching quite a bit of tv! It did help to take my mind off of it all though! They gave me a topical anticeptic, extra shots of novicaine, and gas so I wouldn't feel alot of pain. Dentist number 3 was afraid with the amount of infection that I had that it would work against the numbing agents and I would feel more pain than she and I would like. The assistant asked me to open wide so she could give me the shots and I thought I was doing pretty good until she asked me if that was all the farther I could open and when I said yes, she said "You poor thing!" It must have been pretty bad in there because I heard that a few times as well as "You really did have a bad weekend, didn't you?!" After I was all numbed they came back in to pull the tooth and she pulled three times, the last time it started to hurt and I was getting a bit uncomfortable and then she looked at me and said it was out! I felt a relief of pressure immediately, even under all that numbing! They called perscriptions in to our pharmacy in town and K picked them up so I could start them as soon as I got home. They have me on 800 mg of ibuprofen and 500 mg of amoxicillin 3 times a day. I feel SO much better! They warned me of pain afterwards, but I have had very little. The relief from having that tooth out has been wonderful!!!!! They even sent me home with a bottle of water and a can coozy. And, the dentist called me the next morning to see how I was doing! I had to call K as I started back home again (he was worried and had called to check up on me :) ) and I told him that this was my new dentist and I was no longer afraid to go back! He was pretty happy to hear that too!
Well, baby is getting fussy so I need to go and rock him, will write more about the last couple days and what we did over the 4th later.
Big hugs!

Wow, I have been terrible at updating my blog! It seems like since summer has gotten here I have not had a moment to myself!
K's sister graduated from high school this year and over Memorial Day we made the big nine hour drive to go to his parents' house for her open house. We left the Friday before and came home the Tuesday after. I have slowly been posting pics from that trip onto my Flickr page....I was hoping to do some more uploading this weekend, but I don't know if I will get to that yet or not. We had a good trip. We met his Mom, Dad, sister S, her boyfriend J, his Aunt D, and Uncle R in St Louis at the airport. Well, we tried to anyway. We ended up on the backside of the airport and with four people trying to give us directions over the phone and K trying to drive and get out of there we were all turned around so when we finally found a gas station we stopped and they came to us. We weren't all that far off but poor K had just had enough. We stopped at a Cracker Barrell to eat lunch and then headed back to his parents' house. We had supper and K's middle brother and his wife came and we all caught up and decorated the house. Later we looked at pictures that K's Mom had from way back, pictures that I had brought along, and the scrapbook that K's middle brother's wife had made for S.
Saturday we finished the decorating and hung out together for a while and talked. K's Uncle V and Aunt S came in late the night before and we got to see them in the morning as well as K's oldest brother and his family coming in that morning. The only hitch in the plan was S and J having car trouble with her car while they were picking up the cake. They ended up leaving her car in the Wal Mart parking lot and having J's Mom drive them to the house. S's open house was in the afternoon and she had quite a few people come. It was a good time. We all laughed as she was opening her cards after everyone left that someone had given her a Christmas card with a gift of money and didn't sign it. We joked that they didn't want to be known as the person who gave the Christmas card at a graduation! Everyone sort of scattered after that, a bunch of us went down to the lake and some fished while I took pictures. K's middle brother came down later and took some pics too. The guys grilled out for supper and we ate in the basement of the church. We took some cute family pics and at the end of those I started to not feel so well. I made it through a couple of retakes but ended up making a run for the bathroom quickly afterwards. I went back to the bedroom we were staying in and pretty much just crashed on the bed for the rest of the night.
I woke up feeling better on Sunday and we went to St Louis to take in a few of the sights and take his Uncle R and Aunt D back to the airport. We went to the Arch and looked around a bit. We didn't make it up in the arch as it was Memorial Day weekend and the lines were HUGE. Not to mention the fact that you pretty much have to go through airport security to get in there! We were on a bit of a time crunch with having to get his Aunt and Uncle to the airport too. I had never been there before, we had been by it as we drove to his parents' house before but we never stopped. It was pretty cool. Not what I expected at all. I didn't realize that it was made out of metal and shiney...for some reasin I thought it was made of stone or something. There were some neat sights around it as well. It had a bit of New Orleans flavor along the river with the music playing and the river boats along the shore. There were horse drawn coaches and bikes set up for four people with steering wheels and pedals for all.
After the Arch we took his Aunt and Uncle to the airport and headed for the St Louis Zoo. We got to see quite a few of the animals and then it started to pour! We hid out under some trees for a while and then when it let up a bit we ran to the gift shop. I had to buy a few souvenirs for some back here at home, Mom and Dad kept the dogs so we bought a little Thank You for them and a little something for a few of my kiddos. We went out to Fazoli's for supper and Uncle V, Aunt S, K and I headed to a local Wal Mart to get some pictures made up at one of those instant photo machines, but they had closed it down at like 6pm! Craziness! So no pictures for us, but I did find a really cute top to go with my new pair of khaki capris so all was not lost. We stayed up talking that night after we got home for a while and just hung out.
Monday Uncle V and Aunt S headed out early for the airport and we all slept in since they were driving themselves back with their rent a car. We got up in the morning and K and his Dad went to check out S's car and drove it home. It ended up being the brakes, which were supposed to have been fixed the week before. Ugh! The rest of us didn't do a whole lot, just got dressed and hung around. The area where his parents live had a picnic that afternoon so we all went out for that and then the residents had a meeting while we all went back to the house. K and S's boyfriend went out fishing in the afternoon and S, K's middle brother and his wife and his youngest brother and I went into the next town to do some shopping. I found a purse I had been wanting for cheaper than I had seen it before so I grabbed that as well as a cheap pair of sun glasses, a movie, and some snacks for the ride home.
We ordered pizza for supper that night and then S, J, K's middle brother and his wife, his youngest brother and a few friends went out to the drive in movie theater. We were planning on leaving early the next day so we stuck around his parents' house and went for a walk, checked out S's new laptop, and went to bed early.
We were off and running at about qarter to five Tuesday morning and managed to hit the bypass for St Louis around the time everyone was heading in to work. We would go 80-85 and then stop and go 80-85 and stop. I was SO carsick after that! And after an uneventful nine hour drive North we made it back home again! We were so thankful to sleep in our own bed and be back to our own schedule again!
Wow, I think I will wait for the rest of my update for later....this has gotten really long! Thanks to those who have made it all the way through!

An Oriole on the feeder in my parents' backyard

Our friendly face tree

A bee on my bleeding hearts, I almost had a better pic of him and then he decided to buzz around my head and I was outta there!

Blossoms on our crab apple (I think that's what it is) tree

Teddy and Casey

Teddy posing for the camera. Don't ya just love the color of the carpet?! It's in the process of being torn out.

Glass on the ground from my back window

My poor car with no back window

Glass still attatched to the wiring for the rear defroster

Glass still attatched to the wires for the rear defroster

The handle left on the window

Glass in the car seat that was in the hatch. It was a mess!

Glass in the hatch of my car.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!!!!

Congratulations to Erin, Tom & big brother Ben over at Tale of a Baby Human and Tale of a Baby Human Too!!! Baby Simon was born yesterday! Happy Birthday little one!

Well, despite a bit of frustration with an off day with kids, nothing major, kids just have those days at times......today has been a good day.
I talked with our insurance agency and they got things as setteled as they could and even got in touch with the mobile glass company for us. I may just have to write them a letter and tell them how pleased I am with their service! We have Progressive Insurance, a local insurance agency shops around for the best rates for you, and you can contact them if you have a claim or make your payments. I am thrilled with their service! The girl that I talked to was so nice, and made it alot easier, I was a bit nervous dealing with them since we really don't know whata happened, but they were wonderful!
Haven't accomplished a whole lot otherwise. I did empty and reload the dishwasher, burned copies of pictures I had taken at Awana for one girl for her mural of pictures for graduation, did a load of laundry, and gotten some stitching done. I am working on Tinkerbell now. I should be working on my brother in law's wedding record but I am feeling burnt out on that one and I got a start on Tinkerbell on our road trip to Des Moines for basketball games Saturday and it is going pretty fast. I am getting excited about seeing a finish soon!
Well, I want to go out and get some pics of my flowers outside before we have to go to the Awana Leader's Meeting and Prayer Meeting tonight!
Big hugs!

You know, I was all set to come back here and give you all a post about how I know I had done alot of complaining and how things were beginning to go so well, and I was beginning to feel more confident and loved, and how I was so happy that I had found some wonderful, true friends that made me feel more like family and the great weekend we had with them when K came in to tell me that I wouldn't want to take my car to my piano lessons this afternoon. Of course, being confused, I asked why and was told that my back window had been broken out. It happened between 2:45 when he came home and 4 when he left with my Mom to do the paper route. Joy. I took some pics after the police officer came (on the advice of my insurance agency) no one could find a rock or anything that had gone through the window. We don't know what happened really. So, I'm bummed, but you know it could be worse. It could have happened when we were in Des Moines going 80 on the freeway and we had two passengers in the backseat, or when I was driving kids somewhere, or it could have been more damaged and impossible to drive, I could have had a deer come through the window and hit me, I could have rolled the car, someone could have been seriously hurt with all that glass. I am just thankful that it was just the window. Of course it has a handle being the back window and the defrost, and shocks on it, and will probably be and expensive one, but it's just money. I hate to think about what could have been with something like that. I did have a very good friend happen to stop over as I was taking pictures and it was a comfort to have him there since K was still out on the paper route and I was a tad shaken over it all, and he again proved himself to be a true friend in making sure that everything was taken care of and offered tarps to cover the back window opening, shop vac to clean it up, a vehicle to get me to my piano lesson on time, and the use of their garage if it could not be covered. I also feel very safe knowing that I have people
looking out for me between him and his oldest son who found K on the paper route and told him that there was a police officer out in the back of his house.
Also on a somewhat unrelated note, in this same family, my friend's daughter in law didn't have to weork a full day today so she ended up taking their van in for repairs on the antilock brakes ( a little over $200 later) she had some time to kill and was shopping at the mall and bought me a tshirt from a sale at the Disney Store! I LOVE Disney! Tigger is my absolute favorite, but I LOVE Disney! She bought me a pink Eeyore shirt that says Eeyore's Spring time Blues. I wore it to the band concert we went to tonight.
I need to run now, but I will give you my fuzzy feel good post that I planned to write earlier, as well as pics of my car, my new shirt, and some of my flowers in the yard (you've given me the itch to go out and get some of those pics, Holli!) and probably some other miscellaneous things thrown in for good measure.

I have to be very picky about the shoes I wear now and make sure I have enough arch support, especially if I am going to be doing alot of standing or walking. These are wonderful for me! I LOVE them! I may even go back and buy another pair!

Please, say a prayer for Holli's Mom aka Nana from Baby Faith. She is having surgery today and Holli has talked of cancer in an update on her blog. Please keep this family in your prayers.

Where is Spring??? Yesterday we got snow!! I posted some pictures in my Flickr, I added the date stamp on them because K and I both thought we would never believe it looking at them a few years down the road! It cancelled school because the roads were so bad and the visibilityd wasn't very good. This meant that it also cancelled Awana. So much for our time trials for the Grand Prix. I guess we are going to start an hour earlier to get all the bugs out of the kids cars and make sure they are all running well. I just pray that things go smoothly. I also posted a few pics of the church in preparation for the race on Saturday.
We had a good Easter. We had dinner with my family on Saturday. My brother had to come up for a wedding Fridy night and then was heading back home on Sunday so everyone headed to Mom and Dad's for dinner on Saturday. Sunday we went to PM and C's house for dinner. They had a FULL house! I think there was about 25 of us for dinner! It was alot of fun! The kids had an egg hunt, there was bocce ball for the men, a camp fire in the back yard, and even some sparklers and bottle rockets! We had two guys that were formerly at the Mission in town and they gave their testimonies after dinner. Wow! These guys came from drugs, gangs, jail, and now they are living for the Lord clean and sober. It was so inspiring to hear their stories.
Today is a quiet day. Just me and Monster. Miss A was supposed to come while her Mom helped out at the school, but they had a two hour late start so they don't need her to go in after all. Ahh well, maybe I will get a nap when Monster does now.
I am in the middle of laundry and hope to clean the house sometime today yet too. I need to get Sunday School done, and I haven't heard anything about powerpoint from PM yet either......it will all get done, it's just no fun going over the list in my head, it keeps getting longer lol!
Smile, God loves you and so do I!


PS Holli.....get well soon!

I don't know how many times now I have actually started a post and never gotten it completely finished and posted for one reason or another! Not that there has been a whole lot going on here worth posting, I mean you can only read so many times about how we went to another basketball game or about me complaining about something about daycare (which you may have to endure later in this post yet) or about how we will have practice for choruses on Sunday blah blah blah. Writers block I guess.
I haven't been in the best of moods either, one of the daycare families was just really irking me. They had started showing up late again, and not just a few minutes, but like a half hour to an hour. And not only after my closing time but Mom would tell me that she would be off at one so don't let the Monster nap. Fine. But when she doesn't show up until two and the Monster is uber cranky and not listening and making it hard for the others to nap is when I start having a problem, and not just once in one week but twice and no phone call to let me know I mean come on. We're talking common courtesy here. And she just walks in and says, oh I ended up working longer, you know how that is. She works at the daycare center where I used to work, so yes, I do understand how unorganized they are up there and how it depends on counts, but is it fair to leave me hanging because of it.
I also started noticing just how far behind Monster is developmentally. I think that there is a hearing problem or something, but Mom refuses to have her tested. The county would test her for free, but nooooo. Maybe this summer. She is preschool age in the fall and do you know how far behind she is going to be by the time she actually gets help? Not only that but I know how cruel kids can really be, and why expose her to that if it's not needed. Why not get her the help and get her caught up now before she is thrown into a school situation and completely overwhelmed? I brought this up in a daycare group I am a member of online and was reprimaned saying that these things are taught and how if I really and truly worked with the parents that I could get her caught up and it wouldn't be a problem and how my considering terming them because of their lateness and refusal to help their child was just silly.
Well, that's all well and good if the parents were willing to open their eyes and find their child some help. Mom's ignoring the problem is not helping me any. I can only do so much here, and if I have the baby for a full day it is less than normal because he takes alot of my time too, and there are the other 2 two year olds, two 4 year olds, the 3 year old, and the 1 year old who are here depending on the day as well. Just how much time am I to devote to her and ignore the others?!
On top of that there are her behavior issues that I am having a very hard time with. She will take a toy from one of the two year olds or the one year old and then taunt them with it. She sasses back to no end, does not go potty on her own, you have to remind her, and if you don't there is the great possibility that she will just go in her pants. Just this week she stood in the middle of the toy room while cleaning up before lunch screaming at me that she had to go potty and there was no one anywhere near the bathroom and I had to tell her well go then and no she didn't make it and I had to practically dress her because she couldn't even put her pants or underwear on by herself. I had to tell her to take her shoes off to get her wet pants and undies off! Just now I tell her to put the books away the right way, that ALL of the books don't fit in the top basket of the three stacking baskets I have, that she needs to put some in the other baskets and she tries shoving them farther in the top basket and acting like she doesn't understand what I am saying at all. She gives me this blank look when I talk to her and she will NOT look you in the eye if you say look at me when you have her close to you her eyes wander up down and around not focusing on you. I know some of it is just childhood behavior, but I can not handle her anymore. And the parents are doing NOTHING about it. Not even trying to prepare her for school even. I know for a fact, Mom has told me, that Mom and Dad watch their satellite tv downstairs and eat their supper at night (not all, but enough) and they send Monster upstairs to her room to eat her supper and watch her shows on her satellite tv. She had SATELLITE TV IN HER ROOM WHEN SHE WAS 2! Mom says she may be spoiled, but what else was she supposed to do with the extra tv and satellite reciever? I told her honey, I didn't have tv in my room at all until I was married and it's still not satellite!!!!!!
I pulled a skills-concepts checklist for four year olds, the developmental characteristics, from the daycare group I am in and I was amazed at what she could not do. For starters I knew that she couldn't hop on one foot, hold up two fingers, or four fingers to show age or anything. I know her speech is terribly hard to understand, K is always asking me to interpret, and others have come over and had to ask me what she is saying because they can't understand her. But I also found that she can not tell me how a cat and a dog are the same, could only find one way to get across the room, does not know any of the letters in her first name, does not know many letters of the alphabet at all, despite me working on a letter a week and doing different activities with them. She could not even identify any of the letters that we had already done. We have gone through M now. She can not identify words that begin with the same letter or rhyme if I give her three words she can not find the two that rhyme, nor can she think of another word to rhyme with one that I give her. She can not associate a letter with its sound in spoken words, she does not know the functions of body parts, and can not identify expressions of feelings, for every one I gave her she said sick. She told me that we wear boots, coat, and mittens for cold, winter weather as well as hot, summer weather, she can not solve a simple verbal problem using numbers like if you have two pieces of candy and I give you one more, how many will you have?, she does not know the square or diamond shape, and does not have the coordination skills to catch a ball.
On top of all of that she does not have very good social skills at all. She plays with one child, leaving another child out. If the boys look at her cross eyed or try to play a bit rougher like boys do with her she whines to no end but will NOT use her words and say please don't do that. She did not speak a word until well ater her second birthday. Not even the normal babbelings that toddlers have, she was almost absolutely silent.
In one of my daycare families the mother works at a large hospital in the area. She just graduated nursing school and she has three children of her own. She is quite familiar with the developmental checklists and what children at a certain age should be doing. One day this mother came over for a completely different reason and after watching Monster asked me how old she was and when I told her 4 she almost fell off of my couch. She said from a developmental standpoint she would have guessed 2! You can not tell me that there is not something wrong there!
I keep her on because I keep thinking that I can help her, that I know the life she has at home so I need to do something. But as I have been told many times, and have recently been told again, I do not have to be a doormat. Just because I put my foot down does not mean that I am not a good Christian. And from another I am not a trash can with a hairy lid. And from a few others, I don't need this. I just feel so defeated and like I am giving up, but I just can't handle it anymore.
Mom is no peach either. She is always asking things that are none of her business and talking to me through her child, not just speaking to me. If I have something up on my computer screen she will read it, or if there is something on my desk she will read it. She does not discipline either. One incident that sticks out is last winter, Monster was so excited to go out and play in the snow. She was naughty so Mom said no. Just five minutes later as I was thinking ok way to go Mom, she heads out the door and says ok Monster, come on you can play in the snow while Mommy shovels! Gah!
I don't know what to do, I'm just at the end of my rope. I'm sorry for anyone who read all the way through this long winded rant. It is more to help me just vent it all out than anything else and this just seemed the best place to do it. More positive posts coming soon I promise.

Can I give up yet? Gah! I am surviving the finger that was shut in the door, don't think it's broken after all...have had it taped up with another finger just in case, and it really did help it to feel better. The pain is finally better there, just looks like the nail is coming off completely. Yuck. Now I am fighting another battle with tmj. It hurt so bad last night. I was awake for most of the night, Casey was too. I think he may have found something in the garbage to eat that didn't agree with him. Poor K is going to have a long day at work after the two of us were tossing and turning all night!
I am just getting the feeling like it's one thing after another. I'm trying not to get discouraged, but when the pain is so bad that you can't even sleep it's hard. Thankfully the kids are being pretty good today.
Looking forward to Awana tonight. It is beach night and backwards night since we missed last week. Must remember to bring the camera. We have counsel time first, which means I get to play the obnoxious kid first. I have counsel time myself next week. I am going to do another story bag. They seemed to like the first one. I hope they like this one.
Well, craft time with the wild indians....laters.

What a week! And it's only Tuesday! I am soooooo ready for winter to be over and for summer to get here! We had a BIG winter storm hit over the weekend. We got about a foot of snow and as if that wasn't bad enough we had rain, sleet, and strong winds to go along with it. We cancelled church on Sunday, there was no way we were going to get into that parking lot and the visibility and the roads were not good anyway, so we decided just to be safe to call things off. We ended up spending the weekend with friends and having alot of fun just hanging out watching movies, playing out in the snow, and talking.
There was talk about having church at PM and C's for those in town who wanted to come, but that didn't work out either. We went to get chorus books to take to PM in case it did work out and we had a little incident at church.....I went to take my boots off so I didn't track snow all the way upstairs and K came in behind me and shut the door....on my finger. It is now a pretty color purple and pretty sore. I think it is more sore today than it has been the last couple of days. I posted a couple pictures of that finger and of all the snow and ice that we have gotten in my flickr account.
The worst part is that they say we could be in for more yet. I have heard three to five inches all the way up to another foot or two. UGH! No more! I will keep you all posted.

Well, this has been another interesting week. The kids have all been fighting the "lovely" cold that has been going around. Baby C was diagnosed with RSV and they think that one of my older kids may technically have it as well, but they won't do the test for it for her because she is too old. They say that it really boils down to a bad cold and she just needs rest. We deep cleaned all the toys and things the other night and I have been continually wiping things down with the disinfectant wipes to keep it away as much as possible.
I didn't have any kids until 8 this morning so I got to sleep in! And I went to bed early last night...I have started with the same cold so that was nice.
I posted some pictures on my Flickr account of a couple scarves that I finished knitting. I am working on another one, need to take some pictures of it yet, but I am having fun. The first one was blue fun fur and white regular yarn. This one I am knitting now is blue fun fur knit together with white fun fur. I like it. I am going to knit a camoflage scarf for my dad first and then K wants a new one knit. This one will be Iowa Hawkeye colors in a different yarn he picked out. I'll post pictures of that one soon. I also have a few more in the works, red, white, and blue fun fur knit together; black yarn with a yellow/gold fun fur, and a black regular yarn knit together with a pale pink baby fun fur. Plus there is the whole tote of yarn I have upstairs to get through! I have alot of knitting to do! Not to mention that I am now learning to crochet, and of course then there is the quilting and the counted cross stitch. Where am I going to find all the time?????

Yeah, I've been gone for a while again, but this time it's not my fault! Last Wednesday my computer decided to kick the bucket. We took it to the computer dr in town and he said that it was the motherboard. Now, we replaced the motherboard and power source this time last year so we were not too hepped on having to replace it again. The computer dr said that the brand we had is known for frying motherboards. So he said that he could take my hard drive and put it in another compouter and I could have it back by Monday. Monday came and K went to pick it up, but it was worse than he thought and nothing could be saved. So he promised to fix something else up for us, but it woud be Wednesday before we could pick it up. Gah! I survived, but it was NOT fun I tell you!
In the meantime we got a call telling us that my Dad's Dad had died. We weren't that close, my memories of him from my childhood are of being afraid of him. But we went to the visitation and saw some family that we hadn't seen since before our wedding or at our wedding, and we will be married for 10 years in June! The saddest part for me is that I know where he is. He was not a Christian and wanted nothing to do with church. He was 76.
Just this morning we got a call that another extended family member died last night. She was in her 90s and a very sweet Christian woman. I don't know if she attended another church service after K's Dad left the church to move to Missouri...but the funeral home called PM and he will be doing the funeral on Wednesday. I'm glad it's him doing it. A mutual friend had called to see if K's Dad would be interested in coming up to do the funeral, but we just didn't know if that would be possible either...I'm glad that PM is doing it rather than the other pastor of the church that we used to attend.
Let's see, what else happened....the dead bolt lock on the front door decided to be impossible to turn, K is working on replacing that now....
It sounds like the "fun" is spreading to those around us too. Some friends of ours had car trouble on the way in to church this morning. At lunch we got a call that PM was stuck on the side of the road with a flat in Wisconsin, he was on the way home from visiting his brother. He also told us that his wife, C, was stuck with car trouble too. We are praying that they all make it back safely. K is in line to do the church service tonight in case PM can't make it. I think he's a bit nervous.
I posted some pics on my flickr account of some things that went on while my computer was down, Super Bowl Skating and some pics of the kids, and also some of the Valentine's Banquet that we had last night. It was alot of fun and the food was GREAT! The kids did a great job with the entertainment too!
Hope you are all having a better time than we are, just hoping it all settles here soon!

Your Candy Heart Says "Hug Me"

A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out. Your heart is open to where ever love takes you! Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you've planned out Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking What turns you off: fighting and conflict Why you're hot: you're fearless about falling in love

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?